This year's team has started extremley well, registering wins with Peponi, Hillcrest, Strathmore at Braeside in League matches. Coach Ianto Jones from Wales, has been very impressed with the boys overall commitment to training and this has led to an outstanding win at the recent Hillcrest Tournament. This is the first time that Braeburn has won on Hillcrest soil at this event, scoring 4 magnificent tries in the final against Hillcrest.

Last week they also played well at the KAIS tournament at Braeburn Garden Estate and although physically dominated a strong Turi team, they unfortunately lost in the Semi finals. The boys will be looking at learning from the day and beating Turi on StAndrews soil at the approaching Turi 7s tournament.

Mental Health Week has seen Braeburn students undertake a series of engaging and thought-provoking activities. During Form time, students attempted the ancient art of origami, discussed the idea of ‘gestures of kindness’ through ‘paying it forward’ and taken time to self-reflect on the things they love about themselves. All these activities have been designed to help students think in the present as well as to boost self-esteem and confidence.

At Lunch times, students took part in activities from mindful colouring to the challenging task of Sudoku. On Thursday two Yoga teachers came to school to deliver a lesson to nearly 30 students.

This was a huge success not only bringing relaxation but demonstrating how exercise can be a powerful tool in the promotion of good mental health. In the future, we hope students have learned to become more confident in understanding how to take care of their own mental health.

For the past six years, Braeburn Scouts have dedicated term three as a tree planting season. This year we had very enthusiastic contributions from our young environmentalists because, for the first time since we started, we had at least three seedlings from the 27 scouts who generously contributed towards this venture. Consequently, 117 seedlings were planted today which equates to Ksh 52,850!

After a busy one and half hours of planting, we went to the Ruaka Picnic Site inside Karura Forest for a picnic lunch and enjoy the serene beauty of the forest.

We wish to thank parents for the support towards this exercise and we look forward to another. The Friends of Karura Forest (FKF) today acknowledged that Braeburn Scouts have proved to be the most active in planting these trees and it is all because of the help we get from the parents. We thank you most sincerely.

The whole school; students, teachers, administration all came together on Friday the 10th May to celebrate the language, fashion, culture and food of the Swahili people.

Everyone tried to ensure they dressed the part and it was colourful to see the new Leso/Kanga and Kikoy styles.Students were involved in numerous activities such as learning to tie and use the kanga in 100 ways, learning Swahili Songs and games, Language café, reading Swahili books, art activities as well as playing various language games that helped them learn a lot of new Swahili vocabulary.

During the snack break and lunch everyone was treated to various Swahili delicacies such as mahamri, viazi karai, dates, kaimati and biryani.

At the end of the day students had this to say: "Today I learnt a lot about the Swahili people and it was a fun experience to learn even further a language I am being taught." [Vineet]. "I had the opportunity to learn that the Swahili Language is used a lot in Disney movies like Lion King." [Kieran]. "I really enjoyed learning new Swahili games. It was so much fun." [Mumu FS2]’

I am definitely looking forward to another beautiful day like this one. If learning a language was so much fun I would learn a new language every day!

The second Braeburn Nanyuki cross-country event took place on Saturday, 11th May.

Our development team left Braeburn School on the Friday for the 4 hour journey, with the first team heading up to Turi for the IAPS cross-country event. The students, dressed in their white branded T-shirts, were so excited about the trip and looking forward to the challenge ahead. We got to our overnight accommodation in Nanyuki by the evening where we received a warm welcome from the staff and settled into the spacious rooms. Afterwards we took to the playground where we played recovery games while the coaches supervised, some players opted for recovery runs and later did stretches as a team. Dinner was ready by 7pm and afterwards we had team building games and storytelling by the bonfire before going to bed at 8.30pm.

On the Saturday morning we left the resort for Tumbili Farm, the venue for the cross country. This year runeers from Braeburn Nanyuki, Braeburn Imani, Braeside, GEMS Cambridge and our own Braeburn School competed. We had a quick warm up at the venue before kicking off the race with U9s followed by U11s and lastly U13s.

Our students put up a great run in the hot weather over the hilly and rough terrain. We managed to win 3 medals by Henry, who won gold in the U9 boys category, Fransisca who won silver in the U13 girls and bronze from Nadia in the U13 girls as well. Our development team came a very commendable third overall against the first teams of the other schools and left Nanyuki upbeat from their effort and with the hope of winning the event come next year. Our journey back was smooth and successful. What a great team effort from Braeburn School!